


Let Morning Come

by thecivilunrest



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationship mention, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Nicknames, Sister Feelings, Slow Build, like the slooooooowest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:54:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecivilunrest/pseuds/thecivilunrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’ve never been more ready for anything,” she tells him honestly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Morning Come

**Author's Note:**

> So basically, this is my biggest contribution to the TWQ fandom to date, and probably ever. I've tried to modernize Anne's storyline--as well as adding my own twists--to this as much as I could, and as such some things have been left out, or changes were made. (For instance, like the show I am ignoring Edmund and Margaret, sorry York siblings. And some people's names have been shortened, simply to wipe out confusion. Earl of Warwick - Rich, Margaret Beaufort - Marge, Edward of Westminster - Ed, etc.)
> 
> Lots of research and time have gone into this fic to try to make it as realistic as possible, but I am only human (and, for that matter, American so my Britpicking is probably weak at best) so please just allow "artistic license" on the things that I got wrong. I tried.

Westminster Abbey is beautiful and solemn, and it makes Anne feel small. She never wants to get married here, and she tells Isabel as much when they’re sitting in the pews, waiting for the wedding to begin. 

“Of course you’re going to get married here. Or at least, I will.” Isabel smooths her dress at the thought. They’re in new dresses, the best that they have ever owned, and they had several talking-tos about proper behavior and decorum on the ride to London. 

Anne had wanted to be a flower girl--she knows that Elizabeth asked her father if both she and Izzy could be flower girls--but dad had said no and that was that. Even though she wishes she could be in the picture with Elizabeth and Edward, and wear flowers in her hair, at least she gets to wave on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, which her sister says is the most important part anyway. 

“Why do you think you’re going to get married here?” she asks.

“Because I’m going to marry into the royal family, _of course_ ,” Isabel answers. She cranes her neck, looking for George, Anne knows, before getting put back in place by the force their mother’s glare. “My wedding’s going to be huge,” she continues more quietly, turning so that their parents can’t hear what she’s saying. “And I’m going to get a horse driven carriage too, only with black horses instead of white. And I’m sure I’d look more regal that she probably does right now.” 

She is Elizabeth Woodville, Edward’s bride and the queen-to-be. Anne knew that her sister was not happy about King Edward’s upcoming marriage, but there wasn’t anything that he could do about it. Her father had not been happy about this marriage, which was announced to the public without his approval, but there was nothing that he could do about it now, and of course they were still all friends.

“I think Elizabeth is _beautiful_ ,” Anne says, and Izzy makes an aggravated noise at the back of her throat. 

“You would, but you’re dumber than a bunch of rocks.” 

“That is not true!” Anne is ready to punch her sister, but one look from their father and she is keeping her hands to herself. If she could only be afraid of one person in the whole wide world, it would be her father, who smiled for crowds and shouted into phones so loudly that you could hear it three rooms over. And not only did he shout into phones, he shouted into phones at the _king_ and sometimes even the _prime minister_.

Though, of course, there is no spying allowed in the Neville household, so Anne and Isabel didn’t know about that. 

What they do know, though, is that the wedding is going to be televised, which is why there is no misbehaving allowed. Though, the longer Anne spends in Westminster Abbey, the less she wants to make her sister cross. There’s something almost chilling about the place, though Anne can’t exactly put her finger on what. 

And then, the music organ plays, and Izzy grabs her arm. “It’s starting!” she whispers in Anne’s ear, digging her nails into her skin. Anne squeezes back. She knows that this is such an important day, and she’s very happy to be here. 

.

Anne can hear the crowd all the way through the walls. There are a million people standing outside, her father said. Elizabeth and Edward, and all the flower girls and page boys, go out first and the crowd roars. Then Richard and George go out as well, and then finally the Neville family goes out with the Woodvilles and Elizabeth’s sons and Duchess Cecily. In the papers everyone always says that Anne’s father is like a father to Edward too--to all the sons of York, really--which is why they’re allowed upon the balcony at all. 

Anne luckily manages to snag a place next to Richard while they’re waving. He turns and smiles at her, and she feels it all the way in her toes. She has to look away, heat in her cheeks, so she focuses on the crowd again.

Elizabeth and King Edward are murmuring to each other, before they smile and kiss. The kiss looks like it was meant to be a peck, but it goes on for longer than that, really too long for polite company. The crowd roars loudly at this, louder than before, and Anne chances a glance back at her parents. Her mother’s smile looks a bit more forced, thinner, the way it always did whenever she was unhappy. Her father’s was unchanged, but Anne could tell that he wasn’t any happier about it. She’s never even seen them kiss this long. 

Beside her Isabel sniffs, but Richard looks like it doesn’t bother him, so Anne decides that it doesn’t bother her either. 

Eventually Elizabeth pushes the Edward off her and and laughs, her face bright with happiness as the king does the same beside her. There are a few more pictures taken, more waving, and then they are allowed to retreat to change for the reception. 

She overheard her mother talking to Duchess Cecily about how normally kids aren’t allowed at the reception of a royal wedding, but Elizabeth had absolutely refused to “kneel to that bit of decorum” and insisted that her boys be allowed to attend. This had let the children of other guests come as well, including Anne and Izzy. 

Anne’s happy that she’s allowed to go. She loves dressing up and going to parties and Richard will be there. The thought of Richard makes her heart beat faster. She’s liked him ever since they met for the first time. 

Anne had been up in a tree. She’d been five and stuck and afraid. She’d bet Isabel that she could climb higher, and she had. But Isabel, who had been lower, had been able to climb out of the tree no problem, and hadn’t helped Anne down at all. 

Richard had come over to visit, the way he often did right after his father died. He’d looked up at her in that tree and said, “What are you doing?” 

“I’m stuck,” she’d cried, tears streaming down her face. It is so embarrassing thinking back on it now, but Richard had been kind. Instead of making fun of her, the way Izzy had, he’d climbed up to where she was and helped her down. 

That was the moment that she decided that she was in love with him. They would get married one day--maybe nothing as grand as this, but they would. Anne hasn’t told anyone this though, and won’t tell anyone, not even Izzy. This is for Richard and her alone to know. 

.

Isabel might act as though she is a queen of ice in waiting, but even she can’t hide her excitement from Anne. “Oh look, there’s George and Richard, let’s go talk to them!” 

Richard is talking to Francis Lovell, but he looks up when Anne comes over. “Richard!” Isabel says to get George’s attention. “Last time I saw you, you fell off your horse, do you remember that?” 

George looks up, but Anne knows that she has to do something before they can start laughing at Richard. He already looks uncomfortable, so she says the first thing that pops into her head, which is, “Dad made Edward king, and that we wouldn’t be here without him.” 

Isabel looks at her like she is the stupidest thing that she has ever seen, and George starts laughing in earnest. “Wow,” he says as he walks off. “That’s great.” 

“You’re so stupid sometimes, you know that?” Isabel tells Anne, before walking off to find George again. 

Richard just smiles. She was trying to spare him from being humiliated, but now she feels the sting of that herself. Anne can’t believe she said that, even though her father had said that, she heard him. “It’s true.” He gestures to the chair in front of him. “You should sit with us,” he says, and Anne smiles. This almost makes everything worth it. 

.

Isabel finds them there when she returns, and she pulls Anne’s arm. “C’mon, it’s time to go,” she says. “Bye boys.” 

As soon as she far enough away she whirls on Anne. “You can’t possibly fancy Richard.”

“Why not? He’s nice to me. Nicer than George is to you, anyway.” 

That makes Isabel pause and make a face, but she continues on anyway. “He’s so...funny looking and dark, he’s not like his brothers.” 

“He’s not but that’s why I like him,” Anne says, defending Richard to the end. 

Isabel just rolls her eyes.

.

Anne is fourteen the first time that her picture’s ever in a magazine. Their father worked hard to keep she and Isabel from there, but there’s only so much that he can do, especially at a public polo match. 

She thought she looked fine, but in the picture she looks frumpy, especially next to Isabel which is where she always seems to be. “They’re calling you Airhead Annie,” Isabel informs her, magazine open to the page where they are. 

Anne doesn’t even want to look anymore. “And what are they calling you?”

“Nothing yet.” Her sister’s grin turns wicked. “Clever alliteration is hard with an I name.” 

The press really does have a nickname for almost everyone else. George is Georgie Porgie, and he is forever getting pictures taken of him going in and out of clubs, usually with other women. Edward is known as the Good King, and Richard always seems to be an enigma, even with the press. He doesn’t have a nickname either. 

“So are you going to tell them tonight that you signed up to be a model with an agency instead of going to uni?” Anne asks, in an attempt to get the stupid picture out of her head. She’s in an awkward stage right now, or at least that’s what Mum says, and she hates it. 

Isabel, of course, is perfect and has always been perfect. 

“Yes,” Isabel says. “And they can’t do anything about it. I’m eighteen now.”

“They can cut you off,” Anne warns. This has been Isabel’s greatest fear ever since she learned what exactly that meant. 

“You might be Dad’s favorite, but he still wouldn’t cut me off.” Isabel waves the comment away, like it doesn’t matter. Anne just looks at her sister and wonders what it’d be like to be that confident, to have everything at your feet. This is a far cry from the sister who told Anne stories and braided her hair and stood next to her at the royal wedding. 

“I’m not his favorite,” Anne protests instead of saying any of that. 

“The only reason you’re saying that is because you know you are,” Isabel says.

.

“You _what_?” her father demands over his peas. 

“I signed on with a modeling agency. I don’t want to go to uni.” 

“You got into Cambridge,” her mother says, but Isabel shrugs like that doesn’t matter. 

“I can’t do both, and I know what I really want to do. What I’ve always wanted to do.”

“This is completely absurd.” Dad turns to look at Anne. “What would you do, Anne? If you were Isabel?”

Anne knows what she would do--she wouldn’t be modeling, that’s for sure--but instead she says, “Isabel signed a contract and made a commitment. She can’t get out of it now,” she points out instead. Their father is always going on about keeping commitments and being honest and this just throws that back in his face. 

It’s a risky card to play, and Isabel shoots her a look, but it can’t be helped now that she’s said it. 

“How much did you say this contract was worth?” Mum asks Isabel, and she shoots a grateful look in Anne’s direction. They both know, after years of playing their parents together, that once Mum starts talking it’s as good as gone. 

.

“Thank you so much,” Isabel enthuses after dinner. She has gotten what she wanted, and is now going to London to model. Anne’s only a little jealous. “For helping me. I couldn’t have convinced him without you.” 

“I’m really going to miss you,” she tells her sister, but Isabel only hugs her tight.

“We won’t really ever be apart,” Isabel promises. “You’ll see. You can come visit me and I’ll be back for holidays and things. Don’t worry, Annie. This is only the beginning, for both of us.” 

.

Isabel starts dating George the day that Anne gets accepted to St Andrews. “Congratulations,” her father tells her, and she beams at him. She’s proud of herself as well, and this is the school that she really wants to go to. “But you should still take the text for Cambridge,” he says, and this is not the response that she wanted, but she’ll take it anyway. 

Anne calls Isabel right away. “Are you really dating Georgie Porgie?” she asks. 

“Oh hush you,” her sister says with a laugh. “Yes, I am. I can hardly believe it, honestly.”

“I’ve seen the pictures of you two on TMZ but I didn’t want to believe it.” 

“Well it’s happening,” her sister says. “So are you really going to go up to Scotland? You got into Cambridge too, didn’t you? That’s where Richard’s going, you know,” she throws out there innocently, as if she doesn’t know what she’s doing. 

“I know,” Anne says with a sigh. “But, this isn’t about Richard. This is about me.” 

“Does this mean that you’re finally getting over him?” Isabel asks. 

Anne thinks about Richard, who she has only seen sparingly the older that they get. “I think so,” she says. 

.

Anne goes to St Andrews, in the end, though her mother puts up a strong argument for Cambridge, which is where she went to school. Dad says he doesn’t care where she goes to school, and that’s enough for Anne. 

The countryside passes by the train windows, and she thinks that maybe she can finally grow into her own here, and find herself or something lame like that. 

She decides to study English, has friends and a life of her own, which is the point of uni, she thinks. But she still can’t seem to get out of the royal bubble, because she gets updates of her sister’s activities with George. 

The king and queen are in the papers often for one thing and another, and sometimes Richard is there too. She presses her fingers to the candids of him--often with Francis Lovell or one of his friends from uni--and thinks that maybe she really is starting to forget him. 

She thinks this, of course, until she goes down to London to visit her sister. “We’re engaged,” Isabel tells her in a hushed voice late at night during one of their weekly phone calls. 

“Really?” Anne can’t help but ask. It seems like he’s more and more often seen with people other than Isabel, at least in the pictures that she’s been seeing. But that might not mean anything. 

“Yes! You have to come here and go to a party that we’re hosting to announce it. I just wanted to tell you before I tell anyone else.” 

The party is hosted at George’s flat, which is as ostentatious as he is. Really too big for one person, and Anne rolls her eyes at it. Of course he would have one of these and a house in the country as well. 

The flat is crowded and she doesn’t see anyone that she knows--mostly Isabel’s model friends--when she literally runs into someone. 

“Oh my God I’m so sorry!” she says, after her whole drink is spilled down the person’s shirt. He’s wearing a white t-shirt too, of course. 

“Anne?” And it’s Richard, of course it’s Richard. She stares at him because he looks so good--so much better in person than in any stupid magazine or computer screen, and right then and there she vows never to look at those stupid things ever again. Not when she can have the real thing. 

“Yeah, really, so sorry,” she repeats, blood staining her cheeks. She’d thought about this moment--the first time she saw him after starting uni--and it hadn’t been with her drink staining his shirt and her looking like an idiot. 

But Richard just shrugs. “It’s no big deal.” 

“So how’s Oxbridge?” she asks, in an effort to diffuse the situation. 

“Good. How ha-” he starts, but then he’s interrupted by her father, whose voice floats around the whole party. 

“I’m done,” her father shouts. “I’m done, Edward. Good-bye.” 

And then he walks out the door, leaving the king alone. Richard takes one look at his brother and says, “I’m sorry,” and goes to him. After that, the party is pretty much ruined. 

.

“So what was that about?” Anne asks her sister when they’re cleaning up from the party. 

Isabel sighs and shakes her head. “It’s politics, Anne. We don’t have to worry about it if we don’t want to.” 

.

At Christmas break Isabel suddenly decides that Anne needs to come stay with her and help with wedding invitations and place settings and everything that Anne just doesn’t want to do. At all. 

“Come on, Anne,” Isabel presses. “It will be fun, I’ll have chocolate.”

“You’re the worst sister,” Anne says, but she knows that she’s coming anyway. 

.

George’s name on the cover is what drew Anne to the magazine. For not the first time Anne is happy that her father had tried as hard as he could to keep them out of the papers--it made going around in public so much easier--when she tries not to be noticed as she buys the trash rag. 

And that’s all this--trash. Even in a dumpster there could be fresh food and this-- _GEORGIE PORGIE, SAME OLD SAME OLD?_ the headline screamed--this sounds like George. Evidently the pictures don’t mean nothing. She can’t bring herself to meet the cashier’s eyes, and then walked with the magazine rolled tightly in her hand all the way to Isabel’s flat. 

“Izzy, have you seen this?” she asks, throwing the magazine down onto the table where Isabel was still deciding on wedding invitations. They had been working on them together before Anne asked for fresh air. 

For a moment Isabel’s face goes white before she picks up the magazine and opens it to the page where George’s story is. Her face turns white, and then red, before returning to normal and picking up the phone. “What the hell, George?” she demands. “What do you think you’re doing this close to the wedding?” 

For a moment her sister pauses, before stalking away so Anne can’t see her face. “What do you mean _what am I talking about?_ ” she shrieks. “Have you even been outside today or is your hangover so bad that you can’t even get out of bed?” There’s another pause and then “ _The Sun_ , George. The fucking Sun has a story about you and there are pictures. How could you?” 

Then she hangs up the phone and starts shaking in a way that means that she’s trying not to cry. Anne knows her sister, and knows that she should probably just leave Isabel alone, but she can’t help it. She stands in front of her sister and watches her cry before wrapping her up in a hug and holding on. 

Isabel’s still shaking from the effort that it’s taking not to cry, and her breathing’s erratic, but once the first tear comes the rest follow and her sister’s a bursting dam, feelings all over the place. “I just want him to love me,” she manages to get out, or at least that’s what Anne thinks that she says. 

In that moment Anne almost hates George Plantagenet, but she can’t be bothered. Instead she just holds her sister and when Isabel just wants to watch sad romantic comedies, Anne goes out and picks up mint chocolate chip ice cream, her sister’s favorite. 

.

Isabel is gone when Anne wakes up with a crick in her neck from falling asleep on the couch. She left a package of sticky buns on the table, which is a point in her favor, but she’s not back for hours which is a point against. 

Anne decides to read to keep herself occupied, but the only books Isabel has in her flat are Mills & Boon novels, and even those are a pain to find. They’re hidden by Isabel’s tampons, which means that they’re obviously not for George’s eyes. 

Anne rolls her eyes at the thought of that man, but picks up a book from the stack and loses herself in the world of _Mistress at Midnight_. She’s in the thick of the happy ending by the time that Isabel comes back, shopping bags in her hand. 

“Where were you?” Anne asks. “I thought we were going to work on more wedding stuff today?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Isabel says, waving her hand like she hadn’t been acting like bridezilla less than forty-eight hours ago. “I went to George’s today, and then I shopping. I found the cutest shoes today too, but they didn’t have my size, so I got them in yours.” 

She places the box in Anne’s hand, and Anne knows that they are both a thank you and an apology in the shape of patent six inch heels. 

“I’m going out tonight,” Isabel says, walking to the bathroom with her bags in hand. “George wants to go out tonight, so I’m coming too. We’ll make a night of it. Don’t wait up.” 

She closes the door, and Anne feels nothing but admiration for her sister. 

Isabel looks more beautiful than Anne’s ever seen her when she’s finally done, looking every inch of the model that she is. She gives Anne a small smile before grabbing her clutch and walking out the door. 

.

Anne gets back on the train to Scotland knowing much more about Isabel and George’s make-up sexcapades than she ever wanted to know. She finishes her term immersed in other people’s stories, and comes back home to find herself in the middle of a fairy tale. 

Everything is white and fluffy at home, in preparation for the wedding. Anne has to be fitted for her bridesmaid’s dress, which is to be a nice shade of cornflower with a white lace around the waist and shoulders. It’s not as bad as it could have been, Isabel had been threatening _fushia_ for the longest time, and Anne’s grateful that there’s no one else to compare it to. 

She’s to be the only bridesmaid, and Richard is to be the only groomsmen. She hasn’t seen him much since Edward and father got into their argument, and since they both went away to university there hasn’t been much opportunity since her father did a one-eighty in politics. 

Ane can’t wait to see Richard again and there’s a part of her that hopes that, maybe, he misses her too. 

.

“Isabel, you look beautiful,” their mother says, giving a rare compliment. Their mother is neither easy to impress nor easy with her words, so the fact that she bothers to say anything at all is a compliment all on its own. 

Isabel stares into the mirror, hair covered with lace and her dress twinkling under the lights. She is smiling so hard that her face seems to be hardly able to contain her joy. “I’ve done it, Annie,” she says, grabbing Anne’s hand, “I’m getting everything that I’ve ever wanted.” 

There’s the fairy tale wedding at Westminster Abbey and George, Duke of Clarence, waiting at the end of the altar. And over 500 million people from around the world are going to be watching. This is absolutely everything. 

And this is true, if you can ignore the possible infidelities, the nights that he’s made Isabel cry herself to sleep, sick with worry. Anne doesn’t know how Isabel can stand that, how she can smile and marry this man despite everything, but she has never looked up more to her big sister. Some things take more courage when things are shaky rather when the outcome is certain. 

“Are you ready?” she asks. Her father has had the Rolls Royce readied ages ago, and it was Anne’s duty to inform Isabel that everything is absolutely perfect and going completely to plan. 

“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life,” Isabel says, and she lets go of Anne’s hand. 

.

The crowd around Westminster is filling the air with their excitement and the bells are ringing and never has Isabel looked brighter. It takes her several minutes to get out of the car since her train is so long, but her smile never wavers for an instant. 

Inside the church George is waiting, and he actually looks nervous, and happy. Anne isn’t worry about her sister anymore--she hopes that they have a gorgeous wedding and she is sure that they are going to have an amazing life ahead of them. 

“This is mad, isn’t it?” Anne asks over the crowd, and Isabel nods. She’s been waving all morning and now she’s about to have to go into the church, so she is getting solemn for the first time that Anne’s seen all afternoon. 

“Here let me help,” Anne tells her father, who is attempting to get Isabel’s train out of the car so he can get out as well. The lace is gorgeous and almost luminous in the pale sun, which is why Isabel had picked it. Anne has to admit that nothing is over the top with her sister--just understated elegance brought to life. 

Isabel waves to the crowd again, and all of the attendants at the wedding before squaring her shoulders, her dress finally situated, Anne holding the train. 

“Are you ready for this?” her father asks, taking Isabel’s hand, and Isabel nods. 

“I really am, Dad,” Isabel says. “I just can’t believe it’s finally here.”

“I remember when you were born, you were so tiny and you fit perfectly in my arm. And now here you are getting married and I have to let you go.” 

Isabel smiles again at father, and then looks towards the church. “Are you ready?” she asks Anne over her shoulder, and Anne nods. A few more adjustments and then her sister is perfectly ready to walk down the aisle where her George is waiting. 

.

When Anne finally manages to escape, she falls into an ungraceful heap on one of the few unoccupied couches. She is so glad that her reception dress is so much more comfortable than the one she wore for the ceremony, and that she’s less busy here. This is much more Buckingham Palace’s place than her own, and she’s glad of it, because her feet hurt. 

“Anne?” a voice said from above her, and for a heartbeat she doesn’t recognize it, but when she does she beams. 

“Richard.”

He clears his throat before she can say more. “Would you like to dance?” 

“I’d love to,” Anne says, feeling her smile grow brighter, aching feet totally forgotten. 

“They look very happy, don’t you think?” Anne asks Richard as the music begins, looking at George and her sister. They’re both laughing, hands clasped, as they talk to Duchess Cecily. The duchess has always said that she doesn’t have a favorite son, but everyone knows that’s a lie. Her favorite is George and has always been George, and she is beyond ecstatic on his wedding day, the complete opposite of how she was on the day Edward married Elizabeth. 

“They do,” Richard agrees, but he’s not looking at them, instead focusing on Anne. He’s always had this way of making her feel like the only person in the room, like to him, no one else matters to him but her. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, but you looked beautiful this afternoon. And you look beautiful now.” 

“Thank you,” she manages to get out. Despite appearances, Anne is not a fourteen-year-old with a crush. Instead she is an eighteen-year-old woman. She can handle this. “And you look very handsome.” 

“Thanks,” he smiles ruefully. “So how’s Scotland?” 

“Great! I love St Andrews and the English department is _wonderful_. What about you? How’s Oxford?”

“I like it there. I just don’t know what I’m going to do after, that’s the problem.”

“Didn’t you want to study law? Why don’t you do that?”

“I just...” Richard shrugs under her hands, even while they dance. “It’s not really expected for me or my brothers to have a career, you know, with the whole thing.” As if being royalty isn’t a job in and of itself. Anne understands that. 

There are certain things that she can’t do, because she has a reputation to uphold, and certain places that she has to go to, because of the way it would look otherwise. It’s ten times worse for the sons of York, who are the brothers to the King of England. For them, most of their time in public is a show. 

“Well I think you’d make a brilliant solicitor. You’d look dashing in a wig.”

“You think?”

“Oh, definitely. It would practically blend into your skin, wouldn’t it? Dashing is what they’d call it.” Anne can’t help but tease him, and to her surprise Richard laughs, harder than she’s heard in years. 

Richard hasn’t even stopped laughing when her father comes and taps him on the shoulder. “Can I interrupt?” he asks Richard while looking at Anne. 

Richard’s face smooths out immediately. “Of course,” he says, letting her go and stepping away. For a moment the Richard and father stare at each other, and Anne isn’t sure what’s communicated in their gazes, before finally Richard looks away. “It was nice to see you again, Anne.” Then he walks away. 

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” her father tells her, not even bothering to finish the dance that he’d interrupted. “He’s the son of a friend of the family. You’ll like him.” 

“I’m sure,” Anne says, following her father even as she looks over her shoulder at Richard, who’s still making his way through the crowd. He smiles and nods, but doesn’t stop to talk. But neither does he look back. 

.

Her father’s smiling too hard when he introduces them, which is Anne’s first clue that something weird is going on. “Margaret, this is my daughter Anne. Anne, this is Margaret. Anne, this is Ed. Ed, Anne.” 

Ed is sullen, eyes huge in his face, and he looks like he needs some vitamin D as well as a good night’s sleep. It’s not a particularly good look, and he can’t pull it off very well. He looks at Anne like he isn’t sure what to make of her. 

“Very nice to meet you,” she says, reaching her hand out to Margaret and then Ed. His hand is cold in hers, and limp. 

Her father smiles at Margaret. “Why don’t we leave the young people alone?” he says, and Anne has never heard her father be less subtle in his entire life. This is a show, of some sort, and Anne is on center stage without knowing any of the lines, or even the play. 

“So Ed...” Anne trails off awkwardly. It takes a moment before she recognizes him, and remembers who his mother is. Margaret had been from Anjou, had been the queen before the great upheaval had happened and her father had helped Edward collect the title of King of England. They had been on opposite sides of politics for years. 

Margaret is a scary woman, from what Anne remembers, which isn’t much. She just looks so different when she’s not in a suit. There are stories about her, and none of them flattering--and the same thing can be said about her son. 

Suddenly everything that Anne had heard, but had been away from the thick of it all, in Scotland--about her father and Edward getting into a fight, even bigger than the one that he had when he married Elizabeth, about her father changing parties--makes sense. 

“Would you like to go dancing after this?” The words seem to pain Ed, like he can hardly bear to speak to her, like the words are stuck in his throat and she’s not worth trying to dig them out. Anne wonders if his mother puts him up to this. 

She knows what her father would say if she told Ed no, that she didn’t wanted to date him. Even now she can see her mother watching them, drink in her hand and her conversation elsewhere, but every so often her eyes wander to Ed and Anne. 

“I would love to,” Anne says. Somehow one of the best days that she has ever had manages to turn into the worst. 

.  
“So how did you like Ed?” her father asks at breakfast. He’s cutting into his egg benedict with impeccable manners, ever the image of royalty. It’s no wonder that there’s still a part of her that wants to impress him, even now. 

“He’s...interesting,” Anne says, trying to figure out what a good way to put Ed would be. He was boring and stuffy and not someone that Anne would want to spend her time with. But this seems to be important, so she tries to give the most generous description that she can without outright lying. 

Her father smiles, like he knows what she’s doing. “Yes, I know what you mean. But you wouldn’t mind spending time with him, would you? I know you have university to get back to, but being seen in public with him, being nice to him would help our cause, especially with Margaret. You’d be helping me more than I can say.” 

Anne has always been the good daughter, never the rebel like her sister. She’s always, for the most part, done what her parents asked. She’s hardly been in the papers at all, and she went to a university that they wanted her to go to. In the end, how is this much different than any of that. 

“I would like to help,” Anne says, and her father nods, pleased. From the other side of the table her mother studies her face, but nods as well, going back to her own breakfast. 

And that is the end of that. 

.

Somehow Ed manages to find her number, and calls her to ask if she would like to go on a date. Anne thinks about her father’s face when he asked her to spend time with him, and says yes. 

She comes downstairs that night and her mother glances at her and says, “No, go change,” so Anne immediately turns around and puts on another dress and lets down her hair. When she walks down the second time her mother gives her a quick once over and nods. “Better,” she says, and Anne sighs in relief. 

Ed’s about fifteen minutes late by her count, and by the time that he gets there Anne is annoyed and anxious to get away from her mother. “Glad you could make it,” she tells him when he finally shows up. 

“Is your father here?” he asks her, and when she shakes her head no he makes an annoyed noise through his nose. 

The date is absolutely awful. They eat at a little Italian place that has decent food but lousy service, and Ed gets more and more surly as the night goes on--he swirls the wine around in his glass and looks anywhere but at her.

Anne tries to be friendly, to talk, but he is having none of it, retreating further into himself. Finally, in the car ride home, she asks him, “Why did you even bother asking? You were an arse the entire night and you know it.”

Ed sneers at her. “Your father told the entire country that my father was mad, sent him to a psych ward, and somehow managed to fuck up the laws of succession to get Edward Plantagenet on the throne, as well as disgracing my mother, and you expect me to play nice with you? I don’t think so. You’re not even the pretty one.” 

That is completely enough for Anne. “Stop the car,” she says, but he keeps going anyway, ignoring her. “ _Stop the car_ ,” she repeats herself, sounding just like her father for a moment. The car screeches for a second, but he stops. 

Anne gets out of the car and slams to door. “Good riddance you fuckhead,” she shouts at him as he peels away, and that’s the end of that. 

She walks the rest of the way home and goes straight to bed, too angry and unsettled to interact with either of her parents. 

.

The next time Anne sees Ed is a week later, and it’s far too soon for her. But when her father calls her downstairs, she goes anyway, just like he knew that she would. He’s standing to the side with his mother, and when he notices that she’s there he steps up to her.

“I want to apologize for what I said last week, and that it was horribly rash and that I didn’t mean a word of it. Would you like to go on another date and put the last one behind us?”

Oh he’s very good--he’s oozing sincerity, and behind him his mother looks proud enough to burst. But when her mother looks at Anne she seems to be sizing Anne up, as if to see if she’s worthy of her precious son. 

Both of Anne’s parents are looking at her as well, watching her every moment, and Anne knows that has a choice. Either she can do what she wants--which is to tell Ed to go to hell--or she can do what her parents want, which is for her to say yes. 

Anne takes a deep breath. “I want to say that I’m sorry too. And yes, we could both use a fresh start.” She smiles at him and aims for sincerity. Evidently she hits the bullseye because Margaret is nodding and her parents are glancing at each other, pleased. 

.

Isabel calls almost immediately after she gets back from the south of France. “So I hear that you’ve got a boyfriend now,” she says slyly. 

“Who told you that?” 

“Mum. It’s a huge thing you know. It’s been all over the internet too. No more Airhead Annie for you--now you’re in the big leagues.”

“Really?” Anne squeaks, gripping her phone tight. She has mostly weaned herself off of Googling herself, since that produces nothing but tears, so she hasn’t noticed. Much.

“The York brothers were very shocked too.” 

“Really?” Anne repeats, her voice even fainter. She refuses to let her thoughts stray to Richard, absolutely refuses. Especially now that she and Ed are for all intents and purposes dating now. It’s mostly a public affair, and they mostly spend time together in public instead of private.

“Oh yes. Especially Richard.” 

Isabel is enjoying this, Anne knows. Enjoying every minute of it, and she hates her sister for that, but loves her sister for telling her. 

“What did he say, exactly?” she asks weakly. 

“I don’t know, they were talking about it behind closed doors of course. Boys and their politics.” She sighs. “But they’re mostly worried about Dad switching the sides so quickly and then you showing your agreement, of course. That looks bad from their side of things. And then the word monster was thrown out as well.” 

“Well thanks for telling me.” Anne sighs. It’s just a couple of dates and walks around the estate, trying and failing to start a conversation. She hadn’t meant to make a political statement, or make the king and his brothers hate her. But of course that happens as well. 

Of course it does. 

.

Once a month Ed will come up to St Andrews for a weekend, or she will go down to London, and they will spend time together, having pictures taken of them, and eventually sex. 

He’s her first and it hurts, but he doesn’t seem to care but neither does Anne. To anyone who looks at them they are a happy couple--he sends her flowers occasionally, and he wears the ties that she buys him for his birthday and Christmas, simply because she can think of nothing else to get him. 

And if he grips her arms a little bit tight sometimes, or leaves bruises, well, it’s not any of their business. 

.

Her father comes up to Scotland to watch her graduate, and he hugs her after and presses a kiss into her hair. “I’m so proud of you,” he tells her, and she smiles. She has waited so long to hear him say that. 

“I love you,” she says to everyone who has come to her parent’s house to celebrate. George and Isabel, as well as Ed and Margaret and a few of her friends from boarding school and friends of her parents are there. 

It’s a very different crowd, and the king nor his other brother are there, which is fine with Anne for the first time in her life. She’s happy to just be there with her sister and her father’s pride, which is what she’s been waiting for so long for.

The party is just as grand as usual, and a semi-formal event. Her father usually lives for these things, so when she sees him sitting down she goes to him, removing herself from Ed’s side for the first time all night. “Are you alright?” she asks him. 

Dad just shakes his head. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just tired. Getting old and all that.” 

Anne smiles. “If you’re sure,” she tells him, and walks back to the party. 

.

Two weeks later Anne’s father is dead. Anne’s in London, dropping off applications, and her father dies. It’s a heart attack, they tell the family later.

“Did he tell any of you that he was having chest pains or trouble breathing?” the doctors ask later, and Anne’s mother shakes her head. 

“Rich wasn’t one to complain,” she tells him, and the doctor nods in understanding. Isabel and Anne are clutching each other’s hands in the waiting room, and when everything is said and done Anne can’t stop crying. 

Isabel’s tears dry before hers, but mother doesn’t cry at all. Instead her face is smooth, unreadable, as she gets all of the proper paperwork together, and sets up a time for the funeral. She never betrays a single emotion, and Anne looks at her mother and wonders how she can do that, how she can be so strong. 

When they get home the Countess of Warwick goes straight to the room she and the Earl shared. It’s only when Anne passes by does Anne glimpse her mother’s tears as she clutches a pillow from her husband’s side of the bed to her chest. 

.

Everyone knows Richard Neville, the “Kingmaker” as they called him, and so the nation mourns. Flowers are brought to Warwick Castle and they grow stories high. He was a kind man, her father, and generous. He was just doing what he believed in, and he always followed his principles. Or so the American news blares when Anne watches it at three in the morning, knees to her chest and the only light in the room coming from the TV.

The funeral is a huge affair, bigger than Anne ever expected. Her mother forbid the cameras from coming to that, and Anne is grateful for that because at any given moment she feels as though she is going to burst into tears again. 

George and Isabel, as well as she and Ed and mother, are at the front of the church when everyone comes to personally give their condolences. Even the king has come, all differences forgotten when death comes. 

“I am so sorry for your loss, he was a great man,” Edward tells her mother, squeezing her hands. 

Elizabeth comes and nods coolly beside him. “His loss will be felt everywhere,” she says, but she does not touch any of them, and Anne can’t help but resent her a little. Everyone knows that there was no love between the queen and her father, and she seems completely unaffected, unlike every other person there. It eats at the pit of Anne’s stomach. 

Their whole gaggle of children follow behind them, all dressed in black and somber, all perfect princesses, and seeing them cheers Anne a little bit. 

But behind the king, is of course, Richard. “He is not a man that will be forgotten easily,” he tells Anne’s mother, and then he turns to her. 

This is the first time she has seen Richard in years, and she can feel Ed stiffen beside her. Richard spares him a glance, and then focuses his gaze on Anne again. She feels pinned like a butterfly on a board at his look, this man who loved her father like a father too. 

“Oh, Richard,” Anne says, and he grips her hands. At his touch the whole world narrows to the two of them; Ed and her mother and Isabel and the rest of the mourners melt away. She can feel tears coming so she blinks them away. She refuses to cry in front of him. 

“Do you remember when he took us to watch tennis in the London Olympics?” Richard asks, voice low so that only she can hear. “Or when we jumped off those cliffs and he dove in after us because he was afraid that we were going to hurt ourselves? And then that one time we broke your grandmother’s vase and he knew it was our fault, but he pretended to believe us when we said it was Isabel because she never got in trouble the way we did?

“I won’t forget those things, or the thousands of other ones. And I won’t forget your father either,” he promises, and it’s all Anne can do not to break down. 

“I had forgotten. I’ve just been here, wallowing in my grief that I forgot everything good,” she admits, her voice wobbling, crumbling at the edges.

“If you want to remember you only have to call me.” He squeezes her hands one more time, and then looks at Ed, who is staring at him balefully. Then he lets her go and moves down to Isabel. 

“You’re not going to call him,” Ed says when Richard goes to sit down, and Anne nods. She knows that she’s not too. 

.

Her mother packs all of his things in boxes and puts them in storage. So it’s like one day her father’s memories are with them, and the next it’s like they’re gone. 

“Why would you do this?” Anne asks, seeing the absence of her father everywhere. “Where are his things?”

Mum just sighs, tucking one of her curls back into place, looking like perfectly sculpted stone. “You don’t need to worry about that, Anne. Just focus on getting a job and staying afloat.” 

“But he was my _father_.”

“And he was my husband. Stop focusing so much on _your_ grief.” 

She leaves Anne gaping in the hallway, staring after her. 

.

Anne goes out for the first time in a month with Ed, and it’s almost heartening to be around people again, even if her boyfriend is being his usual cheerful self. 

She’s chosen her clothes with more care than usual, and has done up her hair. Ed seems to have noticed, and brought her to a restaurant that’s a step up from the places that they usually go. They are the youngest people there, but it’s a nice place and she doesn’t give it much thought. 

Or at least she doesn’t until the musicians come closer to them when Ed beckons them over. “Anne,” he says her name like it’s an ugly word, but does it so softly that unless you’re searching for it or know him like she does you hardly notice it. 

When Ed gets down on one knee Anne gasps and covers her mouth with both her hands. “Will you marry me?”

Really, the chandeliers should have alerted her to this. 

For a moment Anne studies Ed, who doesn’t look ecstatic about what he’s asking. Instead he looks more resigned than anything, and no is on the tip of her tongue. But then she looks around the restaurant and notices that they are all waiting with baited breath for her answer. 

She thinks of her father, and how she started dating the man in front of her because he asked her to be kind to him, and how it evolved to three years of dating. If they were any other couple this step would seem automatic, effortless. Her father would certainly think so. 

Anne can only imagine how disappointed he would be if she told Ed no, so instead she tells him, “Yes.” 

As the other patrons clap around her, and Ed rises and kisses her mouth, Anne thinks of her father, smiling down on this from heaven. 

.

Margaret comes over the next day, and kisses Anne on both cheeks in greeting, which is a first for her. She has never been so warm towards Anne before. She was usually in cahoots with her father, making plans and schemes while the young people were out and about. 

“You are to be a part of my family now,” she tells Anne, the last traces of a French accent giving her voice an elegant touch. “You will be my daughter, and I will help you with my son. I know he can be...troublesome. Your father would be very pleased with what you have chosen.”

The words I _know_ are on the tip of Anne’s tongue, but she doesn’t manage to say them. 

“Yes, Rich would be so happy,” her mother says, coming in from behind. 

“I thought we could start planning an engagement party today?” Margaret says immediately to her, getting right to the point as she is known to do. Mum agrees and starts talking about her experience with Isabel, and they compare notes. 

“Already?” Anne asks without meaning to and several beats too late. Both women look up and stare at her as if she has three heads. 

“The quicker the better,” Margaret tells her, a bit of derision in her tone. It’s clear where Ed gets _that_ from. “Don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” her mother says, nodding. “You don’t have to worry about all of this yet, Anne, if you don’t want to.” 

“We can handle everything if you need us to,” Margaret tells her, touching her cheek. “I know you’re still mourning. But this really needs to be done. Lord Warwick would be so disappointed if it was not done as efficiently as possible.” 

“You’re right,” Anne finds herself saying. She tries to smile, but it feels like more of a grimace. “You’re absolutely right.” 

.

Isabel comes over before the engagement party to help Anne get ready. She pulls Anne’s hair into some impossible style that she can only have learned at some fashion show or other, and then brings her face down to Anne’s. 

For once, even Anne’s make-up is impeccable. She let Isabel do whatever she wanted, and it actually turned out well. “Look at us,” Isabel says, her cheek warm on Anne’s own. They really do not look alike at first glance--hardly like sisters at all--but when you look deeper there might be something there. “The beautiful Neville girls together again. And if we lived in the fourteenth century, it would matter that I’m duchess and you’re about to be a princess. A princess Anne, like in a fairy tale.” 

“It doesn’t feel like a fairy tale,” Anne says. In fairy tales fathers live and the princes aren’t monsters and there’s a happily ever after. This doesn’t feel like a happily ever after. It doesn’t seem to feel like anything, the way that nothing has felt right since their father died. 

“That’s just nerves,” Isabel says. “Ed seems a little... rough around the edges, but you love him, right?”

“Of course,” Anne lies, and it no longer tastes sweet in her mouth.

.

The party is gorgeous, which with both her mother and Margaret at the helm, of course it is. There isn’t a touch of Anne anywhere, which is probably a good thing. Instead it is all tasteful and red, the brocade thick and embroidered with gold. It’s a bit much for Anne, but seeing as how she had nothing to do with any of this, she can’t hardly complain. 

“Everything looks fantastic,” she tells Margaret who beams before shoving her towards her son.

“Smile you two,” she says, and behind her there is a professional photographer. So Anne smiles towards the camera flash, something that she’s been trying to avoid all of her life, and hopes that nothing is out of place. 

Everyone that Anne has grown up seeing is here. The king and queen, Marge Beaufort and her latest husband, Isabel and George, Duchess Cecily, and...Richard. Richard is here, but he has yet to come up to congratulate them, which for some reason makes her happy. She doesn’t want him to come and wish them luck. 

Her father would love this, she thinks suddenly. He would love for them all to see this, for them all to be here and see one of his daughters being married. He would have been standing beside her the whole time, just as Margaret is with Ed, and for that’s all it takes. 

For a moment it’s all a bit too much--the camera flashes and Ed standing beside her and the effort of keeping her smiles up--so Anne steps back and tells her fiancee, “I’m going to go get something to drink,” and he nods, kissing her lightly on the cheek before letting her go. 

People in the crowd congratulate her as she walks past, but she keeps going past them. There are tears on her cheeks because she can’t stop thinking about her father. She only makes it as far as the hallway before there’s someone behind her. 

“Izzy, I’m fine, _please_ just leave me alone.” 

“Anne,” someone says, and she turns to find Richard, hand stretched out. He drops it when he sees that she’s turned and he straightens himself up. “Are you okay?” 

It’s the first time that someone’s asked her that question is so long that Anne almost starts to cry harder. Instead she takes a deep, shuddery breath. “I used to think that you and I were going to get married, isn’t that so stupid?” she asks, wiping at her eyes. It doesn’t help; tears keep falling anyway. 

“And I used to think that my father would be able to walk my down the aisle, but he can’t do that now. He gave Isabel a little speech before her wedding, you know. Something about holding her in his arms when she was a baby. And now I’ll never get a speech, not even a hand-me-down one. I’ll have to walk down the aisle on my own.” 

“Anne,” Richard says, anguished, and he finally places a hand on her shoulder. “I-”

“Anne,” Ed calls from behind, and she whirls around and away from Richard’s touch. “Oh,” he says. “Of course he’s here.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Richard asks, eyes narrowing. 

“It’s a bit obvious that you fancy her, so step away from her right this second. Anne come on, let’s go. Mum wants us to take more pictures.”

“No,” Anne tells him for probably the first time in their whole relationship. “I can’t go back in there right now. I look like a fright and I’m not okay enough to be there. I was just going to the bathroom to freshen up.”

“I thought you were going to get something to drink? I should have known that you’d still be screwing around with him, you stupid slag.” 

“Anne isn’t a slag and you’re a completely bastard. She’s upset, you should see that, you’re her fiancee.” 

Ed sneers at him. “Stay out of this, it isn’t your business.” 

Before Richard can reply Anne takes a step towards Ed. “No, it’s okay Richard,” she tells him, putting a calming hand on his arm. Then, with everything she has, she punches Ed straight in the face. For the first time since her father died, Anne finally feels something at full volume. 

There’s a satisfying cracking noise, but her euphoria is quickly overshadowed by the pain in her hand that blooms immediately after. She shakes out her hand, biting her lip, as Ed moans. There’s blood dripping out of his nose and onto his shirt and the carpet. He covers his nose with his hand and looks at Anne, eyes wide, before walking out the door again. He’s probably going to try to find his mother, and she smiles at the thought. 

God, she hates him so much. For years she dealt with him calling her names and handling her roughly, but no more. There’s no way that he’d want anything to do with her now, especially now that she’s punched him. 

And then reality sets in and she realizes what she’s just done. She completely ruined the only relationship that she’s ever had--and likely the only relationship that she’s ever _going_ to have--and her father’s dream for her in one stupid move. 

She starts crying in earnest then, and she turns her back to Richard so that she doesn’t have to see his face. Anne can’t look at him and ignore the fact that she loves him, and she definitely can’t look at him after punching her fiance right in the face. She’s such a bloody _idiot_. 

“Anne?” Richard says her name so softly that it only makes her cry harder. When she doesn’t respond he puts his hand on her arm, and then pulls her towards him. He wraps his arms around her, which only makes her cry harder. She feels guilty for having this be the only thing that she’s ever wanted. 

She lets him hold her for the length of a few heartbeats, but that’s all she allows herself. She steps back and he lets her go. “I can’t look at you and be okay right now,” she tells him before turning away and walking back towards the party. 

Ed and Margaret are nowhere to be found, and everyone is standing in clusters, whispering. Anne looks at all of them, and they all stare back. Mum looks absolutely furious and starts to walk towards Anne before Isabel stops her with a few words. She nods at whatever Isabel is saying, and Isabel walks towards her instead. 

She grabs Anne’s arm and takes her back to the hallway where she was just hugging Richard. He’s gone now, too, and so it’s just she and Izzy alone. “It’s okay, Annie,” Isabel tells her, stroking her hair like they are little girls again. She lets Anne cry for as long as she wants, arms around her. 

They aren’t as strong as Richard’s, but they are just as comforting, and for not the first time, Anne is glad to have a sister. 

. 

The car ride home from the part is excruciating. No one seems to know what to say, and Anne still feels 

“We are lucky that Margaret didn’t choose to press charges,” her mother hisses, the first to break the silence. “What would your father think?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Anne answers, which makes them all go silent again. 

“You can stay with me and George,” Isabel tells her suddenly, hand on her arm. “For however long you need to. And you can start writing a novel or whatever it is that you wanted to do with your degree.” 

George stiffens beside her, but Isabel puts her hand on his leg and he stills again. “You don’t mind, do you Mum?”

“Take her,” Mum says, like it’s nothing, like they don’t even need Anne’s permission. 

“Do you want to stay with us, Annie?” 

Anne has two options. Either she can stay with Isabel and George, or she can stay with her mother, who looks as though she will never talk to her ever again. 

“Of course,” she says finally. “Should I go get my things?”

.

At first things seem normal enough at George and Isabel’s. Anne doesn’t want to go anywhere, barely wants to leave her room, and she doesn’t have to. 

George will smile charmingly at her whenever he sees her before going off to do his business. Isabel leaves her alone for the most part, but she’s always up for a card game or watching a movie or doing each other’s nails, like they had when they were younger. 

At first, it’s good. 

Then it just gets bad. 

Anne wants to go to London and apply for more jobs, seeing as how she had only gotten one callback from the places that she applied for, and seeing as how Dad died and she had got sucked into the whirlpool of that, she had been forced to decline. Now she wants to go out and live again. 

Only, it seems, she can’t. 

“Sorry Miss,” George and Isabel’s driver--because of course the two of them would have a _driver_ \--tells her. “I can’t take you anywhere. You’re supposed to stay here unless one of them is with you.” 

She goes directly to Isabel after being told this. “Your driver won’t take me somewhere, and he says either you or George have to be with me.” 

Isabel looks up from the fashion magazine that she had been thumbing through. “Of course. What did you expect?”

“I’m a grown woman, I can do things by myself. I want to go out there again, not be locked up here with you and George.”

“This is what happens when you become an embarrassment, Anne,” Isabel says. 

“An _embarrassment_? Is that really what you think of me?” 

“You punched someone, and not even just someone, you punched a prince. Margaret wanted to sue you, and you staying here and staying quiet was the only way to talk her out of that. And mother thought it would be best as well.”

“Mum agrees that I should be stuck here? What’s next, are you going to throw me in the tower too?” 

“You should just be happy you’re here with me and not with mum,” Isabel says, before going back to her magazine. 

.

George and Isabel’s home--which had once seemed so lovely--becomes nothing more than a prison, and Anne is angry. They live far enough that there aren’t any cabs anywhere, and there isn’t anyone that she could call to talk to this about. It’s a family matter, and best left here, even though her only family agrees that she should be locked up. 

She starts to write a novel, and it’s nothing but her frustrations and it makes her feel a bit better. The heroine in the novel has a sister too. The sister is evil, and Anne makes sure that if Isabel ever reads this she’ll know exactly who the sister is supposed to be. 

Writing is nice, but not as good as actually going outside and interacting with people would. 

About a month into her stay, Isabel and George are going on a trip to America. “Will you please stay and watch the house for us?” Isabel asks, batting her eyelashes as though Anne actually has a choice. 

“Of course,” she says, smiling tightly. George nods, pleased, and then walks out to the car. Isabel hugs her before she goes, whispers in her ear, “Thank you for not making a fuss about this.” 

“Good-bye,” Anne says, and then starts planning her escape. 

.

As it turns out, there is no escape to plan. The driver won’t take her anymore, and Anne is iffy about walking, but she will if she has to. 

But then her salvation comes, in the shape of Richard. 

“George?” he calls out, searching for his brother less than a week after George and Isabel left. “Don’t tell me that you went early.” 

“He did,” Anne says, making Richard start and look over at her. “They both left early.” 

“Oh. Anne, what are you doing here? I thought that you’d be...somewhere else, by now.” 

“No, I’m forced to stay here because I’m an embarrassment to the family.” Anne sighs just thinking about it, because this is all fifty shades of unfair. 

“They’re forcing you to stay here?” Richard asks, like he can’t believe such a thing. 

“I can’t leave. Their driver won’t take me anywhere without them, and Mum agrees that I should be left here to rot. I don’t know what else to do.” 

“Well...do you want to get out of here?” 

“Do you mean it?” Anne asks. 

“Of course. We could go grab lunch at a pub or something, if you’d like?”

Anne beams at him, and he smiles back at her. “Let me go get my coat,” she tells him, running up the stairs to her room. Of course she should have called Richard--of course he would have saved her. Why didn’t she call him again?

And then she remembers why, and stops cold. But even so, this is Richard, who has known her since she was small, and when she goes downstairs again he smiles at her. That’s all the encouragement that Anne needs. 

.

“So why did you need to see George?” Anne asks once they get to the pub. 

“Oh, he and Edward are arguing again, and I was going to send a message that Edward needed to send.” 

“Just like when the three of you were small!” Anne exclaims, laughing. 

“Exactly like that. You’d think that it’s been twenty years and that they’d be over this by now, but no.” Richard rolls her eyes and Anne giggles again. 

She hasn’t felt this happy in a long time. Part of it is definitely being in public again, but another part of it is definitely Richard. She just isn’t sure if she wants to admit that or not, so she places that in the back of her mind to forget about it. 

“Thank you for getting me out of there,” she tells him after she stops laughing. 

“How long have you been there?”

“About a month,” she admits, focusing on the food on her plate instead of looking at him. 

“Why didn’t you tell someone? You could have called me and I would have told George where to put it.” 

“At first I didn’t realize what was happening. I was sort of in shock, after breaking the engagement with Ed by breaking his nose, and then Dad...his passing just really left me reeling. I couldn’t believe that he died, you know? He always seemed so much bigger, so much more, than that. And I didn’t call you, because, well...” she trails off, shrugging helplessly. 

He nods. “I know we had our problems with him in the end, but everyone mourned him. You didn’t need to be so alone.” He touches her hand with his fingertips, and smiles softly at her. She finds herself smiling back. 

.

Richard starts to come by George and Isabel’s every day, even though Anne is sure that there are better things that he could be doing with his time. They go to the same neighborhood every day and always eat there--lunch or dinner, whatever Richard can get away for--and Anne starts looking forward to this part of her day more and more. 

There’s a part of her that tells her that she should stop this, that she’s only going to be hurt by this in the end, that she increased exposure to Richard will only hurt her more. But she can’t help that she loves him, so she doesn’t try. 

Every time he drops her off she asks him, “Are you coming back tomorrow?” and he always answers, “Yes.”

.

“So are you coming tomorrow?” Anne asks, hovering outside of the car door. She never wants to go back to George and Isabel’s after a night with Richard, but this night especially. They had ridden down the empty streets with the music turned loud and the wind in their hair, and Richard had made her sides hurt with laughter. 

After all that, the empty house looks especially uninviting tonight. She would ask Richard to come in, but she isn’t sure of how he’d take that. 

“No I have a date,” Richard says, a slight smile on his mouth. 

Anne freezes at the very thought, her fingers gripping the car door so hard that it begins to hurt. “Oh really? With who?” 

“Marge Beaufort. She asked and...”

“Marge Beaufort?!” she fairly shrieks the words, and has to take a deep breath to calm herself. “But she’s old and ugly and she has a kid...”

“Yes, but she asked _me_ and really if things go badly at least it was only one date. And if things go right, well, the public loves her, so...”

“Well if that’s all you want out of a relationship, then you deserve Marge Beaufort and her saint’s knees. Just remember that if I wasn’t stuck at my sister’s house that I could have anyone that I wanted too.” 

Then she slams the car door, right in Richard’s face. He seems torn between expressions, and she can’t read either. She’s never been able to read him and she used to love that, love the mystery of it, but right now it’s exhausting and she never wants to see his face ever again. 

They had never talked about it, but Anne had assumed that they were something, or were going to be _something_. But that might have just been her projecting her lifetime crush onto him, hoping so hard that he’d love her that she ignored reality. It’s not like it would have been the first time. 

It’s just...why can’t she get over him? Why has she always been stuck on Richard and unable to feel about anyone else the way she feels about him? She tried so hard with Ed to love him and yet she never quite managed it. 

.

Anne goes to bed sad but she wakes up angry. All she can think about all day is Richard going on a date with someone else. He would enjoy her company of course. Even Anne can admit that Marge is smart, and they would be well matched there. They would probably dress up and go to a nice restaurant and sit down and have a wonderful time. 

They might kiss after, and the thought makes Anne sick to her stomach, but it’s true. They probably would. And then they would go on more dates and more dates and then they’d get married and it would be on the telly and Anne would have to watch or even worse--actually have to attend. 

Fuck Richard Plantagenet, she thinks, and then tries to work on her novel. Only she can’t seem to focus on the characters and their motivations, not when she’s too focused on everything that’s going on in her life. 

Eventually, though, she knows what she needs to do. What Isabel would tell her to do, if she was here and knew about everything that was going on. 

That night Anne gets out her black clubbing dress, one she has only ever worn once before. It’s black and short and it shines under the right lighting, which makes it perfect for what she’s going for. 

She grabs the shows that Isabel bought for her right before marrying George--they are the highest she owns--and paints her face in dark colors and red lipstick. 

“I need you to take me to London,” she tells the valet, and he takes one look at her and does not argue. 

There are paparazzi at the club, which she knew there would be, and she smiles at them before walking inside. And from there...Anne remembers why she doesn’t really like clubbing that much. Bodies are packed everywhere and the music is loud, but at least there is alcohol. 

Anne goes to the bar and asks for a drink, ignoring the man on the seat next to hers, who looks like he’s trying to work himself up to speak to her. “Don’t,” she says, and sips on her martini. “It’s better if you don’t.” 

He noticeably deflates, but Anne can’t find it in herself to care very much. Instead she sips on her martini and asks for another one as soon as she’s done. “Just keep them coming,” she tells the bartender, and turns around to watch the dancing. 

After about six drinks she feels like she can finally dance, and does so, paying the bartender and walking to the dance floor. She wobbles a bit in her heels and almost falls on her face--but before she can someone catches her by the arm. 

“Thanks,” she says, looking up at the man who saved her. He’s blonde and tall and basically the opposite of Richard in every way, which makes her smile at him. He smiles back, before leaning close to her ear. 

“Want to dance?” he shouts to be heard over the bass of the music. 

Anne nods and grabs his hand and drags him to the dance floor. She’s never been much of a dancer--at St Andrews she and her friends went to pubs more often than clubs--but with six martinis in her system she realizes why people find this fun. The music matches her mood--it’s angry and loud and all consuming and when she’s with this man who doesn’t remind her of Richard it makes everything fade away. 

“Do you want to go somewhere more private?” he asks and Anne nods without thinking about it. He grabs her arm and drags her to the edge of the dance floor and only then does Anne realize what he means for them to do. 

“No, I don’t want to anymore,” she says, trying to pull away, but his grip just becomes tighter. This reminds her of Ed and panic tightens her throat because no, not again. Please not ever again. She refuses to let that happen. 

Anne tries to step away but the guy just shakes his head and she can’t believe she ever thought he was hands. “Let go of me!” She twists her arm and tries shoving at his hand with her free one but he keeps walking as if he barely notices that she’s resisting him. Instead he manages to push her into a wall and her heart is thumping in her chest so hard she doesn’t know what to do; the alcohol has made everything hazy and the self defense classes that she took unclear. 

“I think she said let go,” a voice behind her says and Anne turns around to find Richard standing there, the flashing lights of the club settling oddly on his face, making him seem dangerous and deathly angry. 

“Mind your own business,” he says back before turning back to Anne and in the blink of an eye he’s off her, sprawled onto the ground and clutching his nose. 

“We need to get out of here,” he says, offering her his hand. His expression is gentle, even after he just punch someone in the face, so she takes his hand, unsure of what to do otherwise. When it comes to Richard, there are never any other options. 

She steps over the guy Richard just punched and they manage to walk out of the club without the bouncers or the police getting involved. Anne wipes away the tears of panic that managed to leak out with her free hand. 

It’s funny, the difference between the man in the club and Richard. Richard holds her hand like it’s something precious to him--not squeezing too hard or making her trip even in her six inch heels. 

There’s a cab waiting for the outside. Anne goes in first, Richard behind her. He tells the cab his address and then sits back in his seat and looks at her. 

“How did you know where I was?” she finally manages to ask.

“Francis saw you and told me where you were.”

Ah, Francis. The reliable best friend. She didn’t even remember seeing him at the club, so how had he seen her? That’s so weird. Anne frowns at the thought. 

“And how was your date with Marge.”

Richard lets out a long suffering sigh. “I didn’t go on a date with Marge. I cancelled it.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because I love you, Anne,” he says, and Anne can’t stop her smile. 

Nor, it seems, can she stop herself from sliding over to Richard. He just looks at her again and then she’s kissing him. Kissing him like she’s always wanted to, ever since she was a little girl and he helped her out of that tree. 

Her hands fist in his shirt and she straddles him, somehow, in the tiny space in the back of the cab. One heel seems to be on the hard plastic of the door and the other on the floor of the car, and it’s hardly comfortable, but she doesn’t care because this is _Richard_. 

For several moments everything is perfect--until it’s not. Richard’s not responding and his hands are around her wrists. She pulls back, confused, and he says, “No, Anne.” 

“Why not?” she asks, moving her hips. Richard’s jerk in response, but then he pulls away again. 

“If we’re going to do this I want you to remember it. I want you to say yes without being completely drunk out of your mind.”

“I’m not drunk.” She absolutely did not slur any part of that sentence, except maybe the last word. But that’s it. 

“Yes, you are.” He shakes his head. “You’re completely gone from this world right now.”

And then it clicks, everything clicks. Richard isn’t drunk, Richard just doesn’t _want_ her. And why would he? He was rich and charming and handsome and everything that Anne can’t have. “Oh,” she says, getting off him. 

She feels pathetic--she _is_ pathetic, to think that Richard meant that he loved her in any romantic way, that she could kiss him and have him kiss her back. Stupid, stupid girl. Tears clog her throat and she can feel her lips trembling in the corners, but she doesn’t let him see. Instead she turns her face towards London, flashing by as the taxi speeds on, and focuses on that instead. 

.

Richard pays the taxi and Anne gets out and starts to walk away, from Richard, from his flat, from _herself_ , but she doesn’t get very far. Not in these heels anyway. Her ankle twists in just the wrong way and she finds herself faceplant onto the concrete. 

There’s rubble in her palms and she feels like she could just stay here, face on the cool sidewalk, and not have to worry about anything at all. It’d be nice, she thinks. 

“Anne?” she hears Richard say from above her. She feels him put his hand on her shoulder and pull her off. “Are you okay?” 

“No, I’m really not,” Anne says, looking up into Richard’s face, which is dim with the lack of streetlights. He picks her up when it’s clear that she can’t stand anymore, and she puts her head in the crook between his shoulder and his neck. His heart is beating right under her hand.

And then the world goes black. 

.

Anne wakes up with a blinding headache and she just wants to bury herself under the covers because this is the absolute worst hangover that she has ever had in her life. For a moment she blinks, sunlight making her eyes burn, and then she realizes where she is. Which is someplace that she’s never been before. 

The length of a heartbeat is how long it takes for her to remember everything, including Richard saving her and her kissing him. She cringes, both from the thought and just how gross she feels in general. Richard must think she is the worst kind of person, falling down drunk and sexually assaulting him to boot. 

She finds the strength to stand up, and sees that her shoes are at the foot of his bed, standing to attention. She’s still wearing the short, barely there dress that she had put on last night, but her hair isn’t curly anymore. She chances a look in the mirror that’s in the connecting bathroom and sees nothing but a mess. 

Make-up smeared, hair everywhere, lipstick utterly and completely gone. Add that to the hangover look and if Anne had known that this was going to happen she would never have let Richard anywhere around her last night.

“Oh God,” she says to her reflection. Her reflection stares back, more tired than anything. But she squares her shoulder and walks out of the bathroom anyway. 

Richard’s in the kitchen when she walks out. “Good to see you alive this morning,” he says, a slight smile on his face. He hands her a mug of coffee, and Anne accepts it gratefully with both hands. 

She takes a sip and looks at it instead of Richard. She’s never embarrassed herself in front of the coffee, so there’s one thing on her side. Finally she manages to look at him again, and he’s watching her, as if trying to see if she’s going to jump him again. “I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I’m so sorry about everything, last night. Everything that happened was ridiculous and it won’t happen around you again.” 

“It’s fine.”

“No, it really isn’t. I should go back to George and Isabel’s as soon as possible. They’re right, I’m an embarrassment.” 

“No, you’re not,” he says firmly. “And you can go back there if you want...or you can stay here, at least until you feel better.” 

Anne thinks about how much she does not want to call for a cab right now, or even ride in one. “I don’t have any clothes here,” she protests instead. 

“You can borrow some of mine,” he argues back, and Anne finds herself out of excuses. If she’s telling the truth, she _wants_ to be here with Richard. Especially since he’s offering. Being alone at George and Isabel’s just seems depressing and lonely, things that she definitely isn’t when she’s with him. 

“If you’re sure,” she says, gripping the coffee mug tighter as she searches his face. She can’t find any insincerity there. 

“I’m sure,” he tells her. “Do you want some breakfast? I’m about to make myself some.”

“Toast would be nice. And eggs,” she says tentatively. Food does not seem pleasant in general this morning, and her stomach rolls at the thought, but she knows she needs some. Toast and eggs is what she’s eaten every other morning that she’s ever had a hangover, and it seems perfect right now. 

Richard just smiles at her. “Toast and eggs it is, then.”

.

He gives Anne some boxers and an old The Who t-shirt, and Anne takes a shower using his soap and shampoo. There’s a part of her that’s happy that there’s nothing girly in his bathroom--it’s all Old Spice and aftershave and Jackberry shampoo, manly things. 

When she comes out of the shower, hair wait and generally feeling better about life, he smiles at her again. She can feel his gaze like a touch, and she’s grateful for something to look at when he places the toast and eggs in front of her. “I don’t have any butter or anything like that,” he says apologetically, shrugging. 

“It’s fine, this looks great.” 

She digs in and finds that the eggs are actually pretty good, better than anything she can make. Now that the headache is going away some she finds that she’s actually starving, having barely eaten anything the night before. 

“I want to thank you for last night too.” 

He looks up from his toast. “It was no problem. How much do you remember?” he asks her. 

“Almost everything, unfortunately,” she says, and he nods. She can feel him looking at her for a beat longer, but then he goes back to his breakfast. 

“So what were you going to do today before I came stumbling in last night?”

“I wasn’t going to do anything today, so I’m glad you’re here.” 

Anne can feel her cheeks heat up, and takes a huge bite of toast to cover it. “And so you don’t mind if I stay here all day?”

“Stay as long as you’d like,” he says, and she wonders what he means by that. “Would you like to do anything special now that you’re out of George and Isabel’s house?”

She knows that he’s talking about going on a drive and finding something to do, which is what they had always done, but honestly... “Staying here is fine. I can do nothing with you, if you want.”

“That sounds perfect,” he says, smiling at her. 

And, in truth, they don’t do anything all day. They play Monopoly (he wins, after three hours) and checkers (she wins) and he manages to procure a chess set from out of thin air and they come to a draw. 

This is the laziest day that she’s had in a long time, and she doesn’t check her phone, not wanting the bubble that’s between them and the world to burst. 

They’re in the middle of a movie marathon when she finally gets the nerve to ask. Richard’s sitting right next to Anne, close enough that she can feel the heat from his thigh, but still not touching her. The small gap between them feels like leagues and oceans, especially with what he said. 

The characters on screen are fighting when she turns to look at him. “Did you mean it?” she asks, and when he looks backs she adds, “What you said last night? Do you love me, truly?”

Richard takes a deep breath and clothes the gap between them. “I do. I think I always have.” Anne can’t stop the smiling from spreading across her face when he leans in and kisses her, his hand on her face. 

He tastes like the take-out that they ordered, nothing between them. He puts his hands on her hips and drags her closer to him, so that they’re chest to chest and she tangles her hand in his hair. 

Anne never really “got it,” when she was dating Ed. The thing that love songs talked about, the way the movies and the books described it. Loving someone and having them love you in return has never really been an issue for her before, so she has no idea that it feels like a flower bursting open in the sun, pressed between two people. 

With Richard, Anne “gets it” and she never wants to forget what this moment feels like, what it’s like to have Richard’s lips on hers. All these years of pain and separation have led to this, she knows it, can feel it deep down inside of her. 

She’ll never walk away from him again and she’ll do everything that she can to keep him from walking from her. 

They have to pull apart eventually, but that doesn’t stop her from kissing his neck while he breathes above her. She’s surprised when he lifts her up and starts walking towards his bedroom, but she laughs, wrapping her hands around his neck. 

He sets her down on the bed gently and she pulls off his shirt. He watches while she fiddles with her bra before getting the memo and taking off his own shirt. He’s obviously hard in his trousers, but the way he looks at her makes her breath stop in her throat, because he’s looking at her like he’s hungry, like she’s the only thing that he wants. 

She kisses him when he gets to the bed, and runs her hands all over his body. He gasps into her mouth when she unbuttons his jeans and runs her hand down until her fingers are around his cock. She strokes him, long and hard, as he scrambles to get out of his boxers. 

When he’s done with that he flips them over so that she’s on top. He’s watching her, seeing what she’s going to do next, so she runs her fingers up his torso and kisses him with everything that he has. He takes her hand and squeezes it. 

This next part is tricky, because taking off his boxes and her underwear is not at all sexy, and she almost falls off the bed doing so. “Don’t laugh,” she tells him, and he bites his lip to hide his smile, deciding that focusing on getting the condom is a better idea. Then she’s on top of him again, and hovering right over his cock, and he stops laughing in an instant. 

Anne’s never really done this before, but the way she moves her hips is mostly instinct anyway. Richard’s eyes shutter closed when she finally manages to move down him, inch by inch. She touches his chest again and leans down to kiss him, hair falling over her shoulder, before she starts to ride him. 

She bites her lip to hold back any moans that she makes, even though she can barely think of anything but him. He moves his hands from her thighs, which start to burn a little bit, to her hips, and then to her clit. 

He finishes before her, coming with a low noise in the back of his throat, and she gets off him, heart pounding and thoughts reeling. She and Richard just had sex, holy shit. She just had sex with _Richard_ and-

“You didn’t get off, did you?” he asks, voice lower than she’s ever heard it before. She shakes her head. It doesn’t matter to her, because she never got off every time with Ed. It had only happened once and had taken them both by surprise. 

“Come here,” Richard says, putting any thought of Ed out of her head. He kisses her lips, and then her neck, making a trail all the way down to her belly button. 

“You don’t have to-” she says, when he goes lower than even that, and he looks up at her, smirks. 

“I know I don’t have to,” he says, and then he goes to town, tongue inside her and she’s jerking her hips into his face. She has to grab something, so she twists her fingers into the sheets on his bed, and puts one hand in her mouth. “Don’t,” he says when he looks up, and grabs her hand with his free one before flicking his tongue over his clit hard. 

He makes everything build up, slowly and then faster and faster, and when he finally puts his thumb on her she finally comes with a moan that’s louder than she’s ever heard from herself before. Richard looks pleased with himself, and wipes a mouth that’s covered with her come. 

There’s a part of her that wants to know how it tastes, so she moves over to him and kisses him, hard, and she can taste herself on him. It’s a little weird, but mostly wonderful. She’s never had anyone go down on her before. 

Richard doesn’t bother to get up and get clothes on. Instead he just brings the covers of his bed up and covers them both before kissing her softly again. “I love you too,” Anne says softly in the dark of his bedroom. “In case you didn’t know.”

He smiles and says, “I know,” before drifting off to sleep, holding her near. 

.

Anne wakes up the next morning to Richard stroking her hair. “Hi,” she whispers, and he leans down to kiss her. 

“Good morning,” he says, voice raspy to sleep. Anne is so happy to hear that, so happy to have him with her at all, that she can barely stand to be in bed. 

“I’m going to go to George and Isabel’s today,” she tells him. “And then I’m going to rent a hotel room so that I can apply for a job and find somewhere to live here in London.” Where she’ll be able to see him often. 

Richard slides a hand to her neck. “You don’t have to rent a hotel room. You can just stay here, if you want.” 

Anne beams at the thought, and leans in to kiss him again. “Okay,” she says finally. “Just let me go get my things and I’ll be back.” 

“I hope so,” he says.

.

When she finally gets in the cab (she and Richard may have had round two before she finally found her black dress) she has fifteen voicemails, six text messages, and twenty missed calls all from Isabel. 

Her sister picks up the phone at the first ring. “Anne!” her sister snaps. “Where have you _been_?”

“I’ve been in London, with Richard. You were gone for almost a month, what else was I supposed to do?”

“Stay at our house like we _asked you to_?” 

“Like a prisoner? No, I don’t think so. I’ve had enough of this. I’m tired of being hidden away and shameful. I’m going to London to really start my career and you can’t stop me.” No more gilt cages for Anne. She was a woman, freshly out of uni, ready to make her mark on the world. 

“You’ll regret this,” Isabel promises. 

“No, I don’t really think I will. I’m going back to your place to pick up my things and then I’m _leaving_ , Izzy. For good this time, and you can’t stop me.”

“Annie, we were only trying to help,” Isabel says, voice softer, trying to soften the argument. 

“No, you weren’t,” Anne says, and hangs up. 

.

The amount of things that Anne has is depressing, mostly because she doesn’t have very many at all. “At least I won’t have too much to move,” she tells Richard, who’s looking at the six boxes that she’s stacked in his kitchen. 

“You don’t have to move, you know,” he says, and Anne turns to face him. 

“Are you asking me to live with you?” 

“Yes,” he admits. “I don’t want you to leave now that I’ve finally got you here.” 

“I wasn’t going to leave. Just move.” 

“And now you don’t even have to do that if you don’t want to,” he says, but she can tell that he wants her to stay, to stop even contemplating the idea of going away. She knows the feeling, because they have spent so long going in the opposite direction, only to finally have fate’s rubber band finally snap them back into place. 

“Then I won’t,” she says, and Richard smiles. 

.

Getting an editing job is actually easier than Anne thought. She’s only been officially unemployed and in London for a month when she gets a callback, and then an interview, and then a job. She calls Richard right away, to tell him first. 

He takes her out for dinner that night, making noise about how now she’s going to have to pull her weight, but she only rolls her eyes and smiles at him instead of punching him like she usually would. 

Living together isn’t all fun (Richard has A Thing about rolling the toothpaste from bottom to top, which Anne never understood, he leaves a trail of things that he forgets about and never puts them in their place which drives her mad) but it’s mostly good and Anne is relieved that she never has to find her own place, though she insists on paying half of everything now that she has a new job. 

It’s only an entry position, but her interviewer had seemed so impressed with her that in no time she’s editing real books in no time instead of just having to go through the reject pile. 

On some nights they ignore everything and have sex all night long, and once got a letter under the door that asked them to “tone down the noise pollution” which had made Anne blush but Richard laugh. 

She’ll bring work home with her sometimes and read through a manuscript while he studies or watches the telly, and he’ll sit beside her. It’s in one of these quiet moments that he asks her, because of course he would. 

They are watching a _Doctor Who_ re-run--a compromise since Richard refuses to watch _Downton Abbey_ or _True Blood_ , and she makes fun of him for watching Merlin--and her mind is half on the episode and half on the book she’s supposed to be editing. 

He’s been acting a little off all week, but she figures it’s because he has something coming up and hasn’t thought about it since, but now he’s very nervous. She can tell that he’s working himself up to saying something so she puts down the manuscript. 

“What’s going on, Richard?” 

“Anne, will you marry me?”

The question makes her freeze, because she has to take a while to comprehend what he is saying. She loves Richard--she has always loved Richard, has an uneasy feeling that she will always love Richard--but _marriage_? He wants to marry _her_?

She’s been proposed to before, but it was nothing like this, and Anne finds herself loving Richard more for that, for this not being for opulence or show; instead it’s just the two of them. 

When she doesn’t answer right away Richard obviously wants to backtrack, but he doesn’t say anything, obviously preparing to take her refusal with grace. “Yes, I’ll marry you,” she finally manages to say, once she’s toned down all of the emotions that she has. 

They’re two idiots grinning at each other, but then he leans in and kisses her and she wraps her arms around his neck. She loves him so much that she can hardly stand it, and now they’re to get married. 

“Let’s not tell anyone,” she says, when they finally break apart. 

“What?” Richard asks, and his body stiffens under hers. “Why not?”

Anne chews on her lip. “I don’t want a big fuss--all the interviews and the parties and then having to get married as millions of people watch. I know it’s unavoidable, since we are who we are, but...I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it, but I want to marry you. I wouldn’t want to marry anyone but you, but that everything is so...overwhelming.”

Richard relaxes and starts to stroke her head again. “What if...we just got married and didn’t tell anyone?”

“You mean like elope?”

“Sort of,” he says, smiling into her hair. “I mean you can’t really elope here like you can in Las Vegas, but we can be married quietly and then go for our honeymoon.”

“I don’t think my family would stand for that. Or yours either.”

“We wouldn’t have to tell them. It would be just you and me, like it’s going to be for the rest of our lives.” 

.

Richard sets up an appointment at the registrar and gets all of the paperwork done so that they can get married at the end of the month. “Have you thought about who you want as your witness?” he asks her, getting off the phone with the civil court people. 

Anne looks up from the laptop, where she’s figuring out where they want to go for their honeymoon. She’s thinking somewhere warm where they can swim--possibly the Bahamas. “What do you mean?”

“Well we need two, and I’m asking Francis. Isn’t there anyone that you want to ask?”

She picks up her phone from the table and grips it. “Yeah, I think there is,” she says, and walks to do this in the privacy of another room. There are plenty of people that she could ask--friends from uni, a random stranger on the street, _anyone_ \--but the first person that she wants to call is still Isabel. 

She hasn’t spoken to Isabel since she moved out, but this is worth it. Her sister doesn’t answer until the fourth ring, something that Anne knows she only does if she’s upset with the person calling. 

“Anne?” 

“Izzy,” Anne starts, unsure of where to go with this. “I need to ask a favor of you.”

“Well that’s rich,” Isabel says sardonically, but then her voice softens. “What is it?”

“You can’t tell anyone this,” Anne warns. “Not even George.”

“Not even George?” Now Isabel sounds alarmed. “Hold on one second,” she says, and there’s quiet murmuring and then her sister’s on the phone with her again, probably now alone, just like Anne. “What is it?”

“Richard and I are getting married!” Anne can’t help gloating a little at that--at the fact that Anne ended up with Richard, the boy that she’s always loved, the boy that Isabel has always doubted. 

“Oh congratulations! But wait, why can’t I tell anyone?” 

“Because we’re getting civilly married and then going on our honeymoon. No Westminster Abbey or interviews or anything like that.” _Nothing like your wedding_ , Anne wants to say, but she doesn’t dare. 

Isabel takes in a sharp breath of air that Anne can hear over the phone. “Mum won’t be happy about this.”

“I know, which is why you can’t tell anyone. Please, Iz.” 

For a moment her sister is silent, but then she says, “Okay,” and Anne feels like she can finally breathe. “But why do I need to know if it’s supposed to be so secret?” 

“Would you like to be a witness? Please? I don’t know who I’d want to be at my wedding more.” 

Even through everything, Anne and Isabel were still sisters, still best friends. “Yes, of course I will.” Her voice is thick with emotion, and Anne can see her sister’s face as if she was standing right next to her. “It’s just like a fairy tale, Annie, you two running away.” 

This is the sister that Anne has missed, the one who told her stories and brushed her hair and punched anyone in the nose who said mean things about her. This is Izzy, and she smiles at the thought. 

“I know,” she agrees. “It’s everything that I’ve ever wanted.” 

.

In the end, Anne decides to wear a white dress. It’s flowy and cuts off at the knees, but casual too. She can deal with a thirteen hour flight in this dress, and that’s the important thing. 

Richard somehow looks even more stunning than usual when she meets him on the steps of the registrar, and her heart leaps to her throat. She can hardly believe that she’s going to marry him now. 

He kisses her in front of Isabel and Francis. “Missed you last night,” he murmurs in her ear, which is ridiculous. Isabel is a traditionalist at heart, and had dragged Anne away last night to have one last girl’s night out before Anne was no longer a single woman. And she’d had fun, of course, but with Richard standing in front of her she can’t figure out why. 

Anne smiles up at him when he pulls away, and then places her hand in the crook of his arm. “For the record,” Francis says, grinning at them, “I want it to be known that I put all of the blame for this marriage on myself. You’re welcome.” 

Anne laughs. “Yes, what ever would we have done if you hadn’t text Richard that I was falling on my face at the club that night?”

“I’m glad that I never have to find out,” Richard says, smiling down on her. 

“You’re going to miss your appointment if you keep standing around like idiots,” Isabel says. “Let’s go get this done.” 

“Ready?” Richard asks, looking down at her again. She squeezes his arm. 

“I’ve never been more ready for anything,” she tells him honestly, and they walk together towards the rest of their lives, the way it always will be.


End file.
